JP2004259324A - Device and method for controlling operation of recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To control an operation according to the environmental change of a recording device so as to make use of performance more. <P>SOLUTION: An HDD monitoring section 25 monitors whether an HDD environment represented by the output of an HDD environment sensor 8 is within a normal operation guaranteeing range or not, counts the numbers of reading and writing errors of the HDD 5 when the HDD environment is outside the normal operation guarantee range, and inhibits access to the HDD 5 when the numbers exceed predetermined numbers. The HDD monitoring section 25 monitors the return of the HDD environment within the normal operation guarantee range, releases the inhibition of access to the HDD 5 when the environment is returned within the normal operation guarantee range, and returns to monitoring whether the HDD environment is within the normal operation guarantee range or not. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a technique for controlling an access operation to a recording device such as a hard disk drive used in a severe environment such as a vehicle, according to the environment of the recording device.
[0002]
[Prior art]
As a technique for controlling an access operation to a recording device used in a severe environment according to an environmental change, the temperature of the recording device is monitored, and the temperature of the recording device becomes equal to or higher than a predetermined operation guarantee temperature of the recording device. Then, access to the recording device is prohibited, and thereafter, when the temperature of the recording device returns to a predetermined temperature lower than the operation guarantee temperature, the access operation of the recording device is restarted, thereby causing the abnormal operation of the recording device. And a technique for avoiding damage are known (for example, JP-A-2001-256714).
[0003]
Prior art document information related to the invention of this application includes the following.
[0004]
[Patent Document 1]
JP 2001-256714 A
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
According to the above-mentioned conventional technology, if the temperature of a printing apparatus is equal to or higher than a predetermined operation guarantee temperature for a printing apparatus of the same type (same model number) as the printing apparatus, access to the printing apparatus is unconditionally performed. Prohibited.
However, even in the case of the same type of printing apparatus, the temperature range in which the printing apparatus can operate normally has individual differences and differs from one another. The operation assurance temperature range of a certain printing apparatus is set to a narrow range in which all of the same type of printing apparatus as the printing apparatus can normally operate.
[0006]
That is, with respect to each recording device, there is a recording device that can operate normally even at a temperature equal to or higher than the operation guarantee temperature. Therefore, if access to the recording device is unconditionally prohibited when the temperature becomes equal to or higher than the operation guarantee temperature according to the conventional technology, the performance of such a recording device cannot be fully utilized. .
[0007]
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to control access operations to a recording device in response to environmental changes so that the performance of the recording device can be further utilized.
[0008]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the object, the present invention provides, as an operation control device of a recording device that controls an access operation to a recording device that records information, a detection device that detects an environmental state of the recording device, and the detection device includes: An error monitoring unit that monitors an error occurrence level of access to the recording device when the detected state of the environment deviates from a predetermined normal environment state; and an error of the access that is monitored by the error monitoring unit. An access prohibiting means for prohibiting access to the recording device when the occurrence level exceeds a predetermined level is provided.
[0009]
According to the operation control device for such a recording device, the prohibition of access to the recording device is not performed unconditionally when the environment of the recording device such as a hard disk drive deviates from a predetermined normal environment state, but rather is read error. This is performed when the occurrence level of an access error such as a write error or a write error exceeds a predetermined level, and the operation of accessing the recording apparatus is actually hindered due to environmental degradation. Therefore, it is possible to make maximum use of the environmental resistance performance of each recording device.
[0010]
Here, in the operation control device of such a recording device, when the access prohibiting unit prohibits the access and the state of the environment detected by the detection device returns to a predetermined normal environment state, It is preferable to release the prohibition of the access. In this case, the access to the recording device, which was performed when the access prohibiting unit prohibits the access, is re-executed after the access prohibiting unit cancels the prohibition of the access. A re-execution unit may be provided.
[0011]
By doing so, it is possible to reduce the degree of inconvenience, inconvenience, and the like that the access to the recording device is interrupted in accordance with the deterioration of the environment.
Note that, in the operation control device of the recording device, the environmental state of the recording device detected by the detection device includes a temperature around the recording device or the recording device, a humidity around the recording device, Vibration levels applied to the recording device can be used.
[0012]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described by taking an example of application to an in-vehicle audio system using a hard disk drive (HDD) as an audio file recording device.
FIG. 1 shows a configuration of an audio system according to the present embodiment.
1, the audio system according to the present embodiment includes an audio processing device 1, a display device 2, an input device 3, an audio output device 4 such as a speaker and an audio amplifier device, an HDD 5, a CD-AUDIO disk, and an MD. An audio medium drive 6 which is a drive device for a recording medium for recording digital audio data, an audio source 7 which is a digital audio broadcast receiver or any other digital or analog audio signal output device, and a temperature at which the housing temperature of the HDD 5 is measured. It has a sensor, a humidity sensor for measuring the humidity around the HDD 5, and an HDD environment sensor 8 such as an acceleration sensor for detecting a vibration level applied to the HDD 5.
[0013]
The audio processing device 1 includes a CPU 11, a memory 12 having a non-volatile storage area, a display interface 13 connected to the display device 2, an audio output interface 14 connected to the audio output device 4, an HDD interface 15 connected to the HDD 5, An audio medium drive interface (AMD interface in the figure) 16 connected to the audio medium drive 6, an audio input interface 17 connected to the audio source 7, an input interface 18 connected to the input device 3, and a sensor connected to the HDD environment sensor 8 An interface 19 and a bus 20 for connecting the above components are provided. Here, the display interface 13, the audio output interface 14, the HDD interface 15, the audio medium drive interface 16, the audio input interface 17, the input interface 18, and the sensor interface 19 are provided between the device to be connected and the audio processing device 1. It processes input and output.
[0014]
Next, FIG. 2 shows a functional configuration of such an audio processing device 1.
As shown in the figure, the audio processing device 1 functionally includes an audio data processing application 21 including an encoder 27 for compressing and encoding audio data and a decoder 26 for decoding the compressed and encoded audio data, An HDD driver 24 for controlling the operation, an audio medium drive driver (AMD driver in the figure) 23 for controlling the audio medium drive 6, an HDD monitoring unit 25 for monitoring the environmental state of the HDD 5, a file recording unit 28 for recording audio files, It has a file recording unit 28, a file system 22 for managing audio files placed on an audio recording medium mounted on the HDD 5 or the audio medium drive 6, and controlling read / write of the audio files. Note that the file recording unit 28 is formed on the storage space of the memory 12, and the other units execute the programs stored in the nonvolatile storage area of the memory 12 by the CPU 11 so that the audio processing device 1 It is embodied as a process above. Note that it is desirable to use a nonvolatile storage area of the memory 12 as a storage space of the file recording unit 28. In addition, the file system 22, the HDD driver 24, the audio medium drive driver 23, and the HDD monitoring unit 25 may be mounted on the audio processing device 1 as a part of the operating system of the audio processing device 1.
[0015]
In such a configuration, the audio data processing application 21 issues a request to the file system 22 to read the audio data of the audio file from the HDD 5 or the audio medium drive 6, decode the audio data as necessary, and decode the audio data by the decoder 26. A process of outputting to the device 4 and a process of taking in audio data from the audio source 7, decoding the data by the decoder 26 as necessary, and outputting to the audio output device 4 are performed. Also, by issuing a request to the file system 22, the audio data of the audio file is read out from the audio medium drive 6, compressed and encoded by the encoder 27 as necessary, and stored in the HDD 5 as an audio file. Then, a process of compressing and encoding the data as required by the encoder 27 and storing it as an audio file in the HDD 5 is performed.
[0016]
The file system 22 reads / writes an audio file to / from the HDD 5 via the HDD driver 24 and reads / writes an audio file to / from the audio medium drive 6 via the audio medium drive driver 23 in response to a request from the audio data processing application 21. Is controlled. The file system 22 also performs processing such as copying of an audio file between the HDD 5 and the audio medium drive 6 according to a user operation via the input device 3.
Note that the audio medium drive driver 23 stores such a track or the like in the file system 22 when the audio medium mounted on the audio medium drive 6 stores audio data as a track instead of a file format. On the other hand, it also performs processing to emulate it as a file.
[0017]
Hereinafter, an operation of controlling the access operation to the HDD 5 according to an environmental change in the audio processing device 1 will be described.
This operation is realized by HDD monitoring processing performed by the HDD monitoring unit 25 whose procedure is shown in FIG. 3A, and HDD access permission processing that is performed by the file system 22 whose procedure is shown in FIG. 3B.
As shown in FIG. 3A, in the HDD monitoring process performed by the HDD monitoring unit 25, when activated, the error counter is first reset to zero (Step 302), and then the HDD environment indicated by the output of the HDD environment sensor 8 operates normally. It is determined whether it is within the guarantee range (step 304). Here, the HDD environment sensor 8 detects whether the housing temperature of the HDD 5 detected by the HDD environment sensor 8 has deviated from a predetermined temperature range (for example, guaranteed by the manufacturer of the HDD 5) in which the normal operation of the HDD 5 is guaranteed. When the humidity around the HDD 5 exceeds a predetermined humidity or when the vibration level applied to the HDD 5 detected by the HDD environment sensor 8 exceeds the predetermined vibration level, it is determined that the HDD environment is outside the normal operation guarantee range. . However, it may be determined that the HDD environment is not within the normal operation guarantee range when only one of these, for example, the case temperature of the HDD 5 deviates from the normal operation guarantee range.
[0018]
If the HDD environment is within the normal operation guarantee range, the process returns to step 303 to reset the error counter.
On the other hand, if the HDD environment is out of the normal operation guarantee range, the occurrence of a read error and a write error of the HDD 5 is monitored (step 306), and if either a read error or a write error occurs, an error counter is set. Increment by 1 (step 308). Here, the occurrence of the read error or the write error may be detected from an error check result such as an ECC check performed in the HDD driver 24 or the file system 22. If the HDD 5 has an error reporting function, the occurrence of a read error or a write error may be detected based on an error message output by the HDD driver 24 based on the error report. good. When a read error or a write error occurs, the file system 22 performs an operation of retrying the read or error in which the error has occurred. Then, if the error continues for a predetermined number of times or more, an operation for notifying that the access to the HDD 5 has failed to the audio data processing application 21 that is the read or write request source is performed.
[0019]
Next, it is checked whether or not the value of the error counter has exceeded a predetermined threshold value Th (step 310). If not, the process returns to step 306 to monitor the occurrence of read errors and write errors. On the other hand, if the value of the error counter exceeds the predetermined threshold Th, the operation of the HDD 5 is stopped via the HDD driver 24 (step 312), and an HDD stop report is made to the file system 22 (step 314). However, in the case where the HDD and the HDD driver 24 use an HDD whose operation cannot be stopped via the HDD driver 24, a circuit for shutting off power supply to the HDD 5 which can be controlled from the HDD monitoring unit 25 is provided. The stop and operation of the operation of the HDD 5 may be controlled. Further, the operation stop of the HDD 5 in step 32 may not be performed.
[0020]
Thereafter, the HDD monitoring unit 25 waits until the HDD environment represented by the output of the HDD environment sensor 8 returns to the normal operation guarantee range (step 316). Is reset (step 318), the HDD 5 is started via the HDD driver 24 or the above-described power cutoff circuit (step 320), and an HDD operation restart report is notified to the file system 22 (step 322). The process returns to monitoring whether the HDD environment is within the normal operation guarantee range. However, if the operation of the HDD 5 has not been stopped in step 312, it is not necessary to start the HDD 5 in step 320.
[0021]
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3B, when the file system 22 is started, in the HDD access control processing, first, it sets the HDD access permission (step 352). Then, it is checked whether retry data exists (step 354). This retry data will be described later.
[0022]
If the retry data does not exist, it is monitored that the HDD stop report is notified from the HDD monitoring unit 25 (step 356). If the HDD stop report is notified, HDD access prohibition is set (step 356). 358). Here, the file system 22 operates so as not to accept a file access request to the HDD 5 until the HDD access permission is set while the HDD access prohibition is set. However, in the case where the operation of the HDD 5 is stopped / started in steps 312 and 320, if the file system 22 can automatically mount / unmount the HDD 5 according to the start / stop of the HDD 5, the HDD access permission is set. It is not necessary to set the prohibition.
[0023]
Next, the file system 22 notifies the user via the display device 2 that access to the HDD 5 has been stopped (step 360). In this case, if the file access to the HDD 5 that is currently being performed is to copy an audio file or write a new audio file to the HDD 5 from the audio data processing application 21, the file access is performed when the HDD 5 is restarted. Is also received from the user.
[0024]
If it is selected not to retry (step 362), the audio data processing application 21 is notified of the failure of the file access, and the process directly proceeds to step 364, where the HDD monitoring unit 25 notifies the HDD operation restart report of the HDD operation restart report. When the HDD operation restart report is notified, the process returns to step 352 to set the HDD access permission and repeats the above processing.
[0025]
On the other hand, if retry is selected (step 362), if the current file access to the HDD 5 is to copy an audio file from the HDD 5, the location and copy source of the audio file are copied. The previous location is stored in the nonvolatile area of the memory 12 as retry data (step 374). On the other hand, if the current file access to the HDD 5 is to copy an audio file to the HDD 5 or write a new audio file to the HDD 5, first, the write destination of the audio file is changed from the location on the HDD 5. The location on the file recording unit 28 should be changed to the location on the file recording unit 28, and the audio file should be written. The retry data having the location on the HDD 5 as the copy destination location of the audio file is stored in a nonvolatile area of the memory 12 (step 374). However, if the current file access to the HDD 5 is to copy the audio file to the HDD 5, the non-volatile memory of the memory 12 simply uses the copy source location and the copy destination location of the audio file as retry data. The information may be stored only in the area.
[0026]
Then, the process proceeds to step 364, and waits for notification of the HDD operation restart report from the HDD monitoring unit 25. If the HDD operation restart report is notified, the process returns to step 353 to set the HDD access permission. Is repeated.
When it is determined in step 354 that the retry data exists, the file system 22 checks whether the copy source and copy destination locations indicated by the retry data can be accessed (step 366). If the copy source or copy destination audio recording medium has been removed from the audio medium drive 6), the retry failure is notified to the user via the display device 2 (step 372), and the retry data is deleted (step 372). 370), and proceed to step 356. On the other hand, if the location of the copy source and the location of the copy destination indicated by the retry data can be accessed, the audio file of the location of the copy source and the location of the copy destination are copied (step 368), and the retry data is deleted. Above (step 370), the process proceeds to step 356.
[0027]
The embodiments of the present invention have been described above.
As described above, in the present embodiment, the access of the HDD 5 is not prohibited unconditionally when the HDD environment deviates from the predetermined normal operation guarantee range, but the access of the HDD 5 is actually prohibited such as when a read error or a write error occurs. This is performed when the operation of the HDD 5 is hindered due to deterioration. Therefore, the environmental resistance performance of each HDD 5 can be used to the maximum. In addition, the access that was performed when the access of the HDD 5 was prohibited was performed again after the HDD environment returns to the normal state and the prohibition of the access of the HDD 5 is released. Therefore, the access of the HDD 5 may be interrupted due to environmental degradation. The degree of inconvenience, inconvenience, etc. due to the above can be kept small.
[0028]
In the above, it is determined whether a read or write error of the HDD 5 has reached a predetermined threshold after the HDD environment has deviated from a predetermined normal operation guarantee range. The prohibition process is performed. This is because the occurrence frequency of a read or write error of the HDD 5 is calculated after the HDD environment deviates from a predetermined normal operation guarantee range, and when the occurrence frequency exceeds a predetermined level. Then, a process of prohibiting access may be performed. Further, if the environment of interest such as temperature, humidity, and vibration level reaches a particularly severe predetermined condition for the HDD 5 set out of the normal operation guarantee range, regardless of the number or frequency of read or write errors, Processing for forcibly prohibiting access to the HDD 5 may be performed together.
[0029]
In the above description, the retry (re-execution) of the file access to the HDD 5 interrupted by the access prohibition of the HDD 5 is performed by the file system 22. However, such a retry may be performed by the audio data processing application 21 side. good. In this case, in addition to simply retrying the access to the audio file, for example, the audio file is read from the specified location and subjected to compression / decoding processing and decoding processing, and is then transferred to the specified location as an audio file. A task that includes file access to the HDD 5 as part of processing, such as storing or outputting to the audio output device 4, may be executed as a retry target.
[0030]
In the above embodiment, the application to the HDD 5 has been described as an example. However, the above-described techniques for prohibiting / releasing the access to the HDD 5 and stopping / starting the HDD 5 according to the environment, and techniques for retrying are limited to the HDD 5. The present invention can be similarly applied to any recording device.
Similarly, the present invention can be similarly applied to a case where an object to be read or written is an arbitrary file or data other than an audio file.
[0031]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to control the access operation to the recording device according to the environment so that the performance of the recording device can be further utilized.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an audio system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the audio processing device according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure of operation control according to an environment change of the hard disk drive according to the embodiment of the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
1: audio processing device, 2: display device, 3: input device, 4: audio output device, 5: HDD, 6: audio medium drive, 7: audio source, 8: HDD environment sensor, 11: CPU, 12: memory , 13: display interface, 14: audio output interface, 15: HDD interface, 16: audio medium drive interface, 17: audio input interface, 18: input interface, 19: sensor interface, 20: bus, 21: audio data processing application , 22: File system, 23: Audio medium drive driver, 24: HDD driver, 25: HDD monitoring unit, 26: Decoder, 27: Encoder, 28: File recording unit.

Claims (8)

An operation control device of a recording device that controls an access operation to a recording device that records information,
A detecting device for detecting an environmental state of the recording device;
When the state of the environment detected by the detection device deviates from a predetermined normal environment state, an error monitoring unit that monitors an error occurrence level of access to the recording device,
An operation prohibition unit for prohibiting access to the recording device when an occurrence level of an access error monitored by the error monitoring unit exceeds a predetermined level. apparatus. The operation control device for a recording device according to claim 1,
The recording apparatus, wherein the access prohibiting unit cancels the prohibition of the access when the state of the environment detected by the detection device returns to a predetermined normal environment state after prohibiting the access. Operation control device. An operation control device for a recording apparatus according to claim 2,
An access re-executing means for re-executing the access to the recording device at the time when the access prohibiting means prohibits the access, after re-executing the prohibition of the access by the access prohibiting means. Operation control device of the recording device. The operation control device for a recording device according to claim 1, 2, or 3,
The state of the environment of the recording device detected by the detection device is a temperature around the recording device or the recording device, and the predetermined normal environment state is within a predetermined temperature range. An operation control device for a printing apparatus, wherein a temperature around the printing apparatus is present. The operation control device for a recording device according to claim 1, 2, or 3,
The environment state of the recording device detected by the detection device is the humidity around the recording device, and the predetermined normal environment state is within a predetermined humidity range, and the surroundings of the recording device or the recording device. An operation control device for a recording apparatus, wherein the humidity is present. The operation control device for a recording device according to claim 1, 2, or 3,
The environmental state of the recording device detected by the detection device is a vibration level applied to the recording device, and the predetermined normal environmental state is within a predetermined vibration level range. An operation control device for a recording apparatus, wherein an operation vibration level is present. An operation control method of a recording device for controlling an access operation to a recording device for recording,
Detecting the state of the environment of the recording device;
Monitoring the error occurrence level of access to the recording device when the detected state of the environment deviates from a predetermined normal environment state;
Prohibiting access to the recording device when the occurrence level of the monitored access error exceeds a predetermined level. A computer program read and executed by a computer,
The computer program, the computer,
Detecting the state of the environment of the recording device;
Monitoring the error occurrence level of access to the recording device when the detected state of the environment deviates from a predetermined normal environment state;
Prohibiting access to the recording device when the error occurrence level of the monitored access exceeds a predetermined level.

Images